Introduction

World War II was the largest and most violent armed conflict in the
history of mankind. However, the half century that now separates us
from that conflict has exacted its toll on our collective knowledge.
While World War II continues to absorb the interest of military
scholars and historians, as well as its veterans, a generation of
Americans has grown to maturity largely unaware of the political,
social, and military implications of a war that, more than any other,
united us as a people with a common purpose.

Highly relevant today, World War II has much to teach us, not only
about the profession of arms, but also about military preparedness,
global strategy, and combined operations in the coalition war against
fascism. During the next several years, the U.S. Army will participate
in the nation's 50th anniversary commemoration of World War II. The
commemoration will include the publication of various materials to help
educate Americans about that war. The works produced will provide great
opportunities to learn about and renew pride in an Army that fought so
magnificently in what has been called "the mighty endeavor."

World War II was waged on land, on sea, and in the air over
several diverse theaters of operation for approximately six years. The
following essay is one of a series of campaign studies highlighting
those struggles that, with their accompanying suggestions for further
reading, are designed to introduce you to one of the Army's significant
military feats from that war.

This brochure was prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military
History by Edward J. Drea. I hope this absorbing account of that period
will enhance your appreciation of American achievements during World
War II.

GORDON R. SULLIVAN
General, United States Army
Chief of Staff

--2--

New Guinea
24 January 1943--31 December 1944

The campaign on New Guinea is all but forgotten except by those who
served there. Battles with names like Tarawa, Saipan, and Iwo Jima
overshadow it. Yet Allied operations in New Guinea were essential to
the U.S. Navy's drive across the Central Pacific and to the U.S. Army's
liberation of the Philippine Islands from Japanese occupation. The
remorseless Allied advance along the northern New Guinea coastline
toward the Philippines forced the Japanese to divert precious ships,
planes, and men who might otherwise have reinforced their crumbling
Central Pacific front.

New Guinea is the second largest island in the world. Its north
coastline extends nearly 1,600 miles from twelve degrees south latitude
to just south of the equator. A major mountain range cuts across the
island's center from the eastern end of New Guinea to Geelvink Bay on
the west and makes passage overland through the jungled mountains by
large units nearly impossible. The lee of the mountainous spine, around
the Port Moresby area, is wet from January to April but otherwise dry.
On the windward side, scene of most of the ground fighting during
1942-1945, rainfall runs as high as 300 inches per year. As one veteran
recalled, "It rains daily for nine months and then the monsoon starts."

Disease thrived on New Guinea. Malaria was the greatest
debilitator, but dengue fever, dysentery, scrub typhus, and a host of
other tropical sicknesses awaited unwary soldiers in the jungle.
Scattered, tiny coastal settlements dotted the flat malarial north
coastline, but inland the lush tropical jungle swallowed men and
equipment.

The terrain was a commander's nightmare because it fragmented the
deployment of large formations. On the north shore a tangled morass of
large mangrove swamps slowed overland movement. Monsoon rains of eight
or ten inches a day turned torpid streams into impassable rivers. There
were no roads or railways, and supply lines were often native tracks,
usually a dirt trail a yard or so wide tramped out over the centuries
through the jungle growth. Downpours quickly dissolved such footpaths
into calf-deep mud that reduced soldiers to exhausted automatons
stumbling over the glue-like ground. Fed by the frequent downpours, the
lush rain-forest jungle afforded excellent concealment to stubborn
defenders and made coordinated overland envelopments nearly

--3--

impossible. Infantrymen carrying sixty pounds of weapons,
equipment, and pack staggered along in temperatures reaching the
mid-90s with humidity levels to match. Thus the U.S. Army faced a
determined Japanese foe on a battleground riddled with disease and
whose terrain made a mockery of orthodox military deployments.

Strategic Setting

In January 1943 the Allied and the Japanese forces facing each other on
New Guinea were like two battered heavyweights. Round one had gone to
the Americans and Australians who had ejected the Japanese from Papua,
New Guinea. After three months of unimaginative frontal attacks had
overcome a well-entrenched foe, General Douglas MacArthur, the
Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) commander, had his airstrip and staging
base at Buna on the north coast. It was expensive real estate. About
13,000 Japanese troops perished during the terrible fighting, but
Allied casualties were also heavy; 8,500 men fell in battle (5,698 of
them Australians) and 27,000 cases of malaria were reported, mainly
because of shortages of medical supplies. Besides ruining the
Australian 7th and U.S. 32d Infantry Divisions, the campaign had
severely taxed the Australian 5th and U.S. 41st Infantry Divisions. The
exhausted Americans needed six months to reconstitute before their next
operation. Australian ground forces, despite heavier losses, became the
front line of defense against the Japanese who, though bloodied, were
ready for round two.

To block the Allied counteroffensives on New Guinea and in the
Solomons, Tokyo dispatched thousands of reinforcements to its great
bastion at Rabaul, New Britain. On 9 November 1942, Eighth Area
Army, commanded by Lt. Gen. Hitoshi Imamura, opened on Rabaul. Eighteenth
Army, commanded by Lt. Gen. Hatazo Adachi, was organized the same
day and subordinated to Eighth Area Army. Adachi took charge of
operations on New Guinea. Despite their defeat at Buna and the heavy
losses in the continuing struggle for Guadalcanal, in January 1943
Japan still held the preponderant air, naval, and ground strength in
the Southwest Pacific and retained the strategic initiative in New
Guinea. With these advantages, they planned to strike again for Port
Moresby.

Japanese construction battalions had transformed the prewar
airfield and harbor at Lae, North East New Guinea, into a major air
base and anchorage on the Huon Gulf. Japanese infantrymen could land at
the stronghold and then sortie under air cover to seize a forward air

--4--

base at Wau, located in the malarious Bulolo Valley about
150 miles west-northwest of Buna. With Wau in hand, the Japanese could
lunge forward again toward Moresby protected by an aerial umbrella.
Isolated and weakly defended, the Australian airstrip at Wau seemed
ripe for Eighteenth Army's picking.

In January 1943 Eighth Area Army ordered reinforcements to
Lae. Forewarned of the impending convoy by decrypted Japanese naval
messages, MacArthur's air chief, Lt. Gen. George C. Kenney, commander
of Allied Air Forces and U.S. Fifth Air Force, sent repeated air
attacks against the enemy ships. Allied pilots sank two troop
transports, damaged another, and killed 600 Japanese soldiers. Only
one-third of the intended Japanese reinforcements reached Lae, and
these survivors salvaged only half of their equipment. Without
reinforcements, the desperate attack on Wau failed. The defeated
Japanese remnants fell back into the jungle, slowly giving ground
toward Lae.

Repulsed at Wau and pressed by the Australians, Japanese forces on
New Guinea urgently needed reinforcements. On 19 February 1943, U.S.
Navy cryptanalysts handed MacArthur solid intelligence that the enemy
was planning another major transport to Lae in early March. Kenney
threw every available aircraft into a three-day struggle from 2 to 5
March, known as the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. Eight transports and
four destroyers were lost in all. Of the 51st Division's 6,912
troops, about 3,900 survived, but only 1,000 soaked, oil-stained, and
dispirited officers and men reached Lae. Kenney's destruction of the 51st
Division condemned the Japanese to the strategic defensive on New
Guinea.

From February to June 1943 the battleground in eastern New Guinea
lapsed into a stalemate as the opponents reinforced and replaced
earlier losses. Shipping shortages created logistics and transportation
bottlenecks for both sides. The Imperial Navy could not make
good its heavy losses in naval planes and pilots so the Japanese
Army Air Force was gradually taking control of air bases and
operations in New Guinea. For the Allies, Europe also had first
priority, for long-range heavy bombers and fighters were needed in
North Africa. Kenney found himself trying to justify additional scarce
warplanes from Washington for New Guinea. Carrier-based aircraft in the
Pacific remained firmly under U.S. Navy control, as did the greater
part of the Pacific Fleet. MacArthur was limited to cruisers,
destroyers, and submarines. He lacked transports, cargo vessels, and
landing craft as well as the specialized crews to man them. Neither
side had the resources in early 1943 to force a decisive victory, and
the campaign seemed likely to continue as a war of attrition.

--5--

--6&7--

Operations

At SWPA General Headquarters MacArthur's staff was planning the
timetable for his triumphant return to the Philippines. Code-named
RENO, it became the basis for operations against Japan from February
1943 through August 1944. During that time, RENO underwent five
modifications to keep pace with changing operational and strategic
requirements. RENO I envisioned leapfrogging past Japanese strongholds
in New Guinea and using paratroopers to seize key bases en route to
Mindanao in the southern Philippines. The Japanese roadblock to
MacArthur's scheme was the so-called Bismarck Barrier, that is, New
Britain and its naval and air bases at Rabaul in combination with the
series of Japanese air enclaves dispersed along the northern New Guinea
coastline.

The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff directive of 28 March 1943
described Southwest Pacific objectives as a line running across the
straits between Finschhafen, New Guinea, and New Britain. They ordered
MacArthur to establish air bases on Woodlark and Kiriwina Islands; to
seize the Huon Peninsula and Madang; and to occupy western New Britain.
Meantime, under Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander in Chief,
South Pacific Area, the U.S. Navy with Army and Marine troops would
clear the Solomons to southern Bougainville. These operations were seen
as preparatory for the ultimate seizure of Rabaul.

From these decisions grew the CARTWHEEL
operation, a joint Southwest and South Pacific undertaking that
originally envisioned thirteen amphibious operations, over six months,
culminating in the capture of Rabaul. It began the night of 29-30 June
when Halsey invaded New Georgia, Solomon Islands, and MacArthur struck
at Nassau Bay. The following day two U.S, Army separate regiments, the
112th Cavalry and the 158th Infantry, made unopposed landings at
Woodlark and Kiriwina respectively.

For CARTWHEEL MacArthur created ALAMO Force, an independent operational command that
was in reality almost identical to Southwest Pacific's newly created
U.S. Sixth Army. By placing ALAMO Force directly
under General Headquarters, MacArthur removed American troops engaged
in tactical operations from the control of Allied Land Forces commanded
by the Australian General Sir Thomas Blamey. MacArthur personally
selected Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger to command Sixth Army. Another
American, Vice Adm. Arthur S. Carpender, commanded Allied Naval Forces
which included the U.S. Seventh

--8--

Fleet. His aggressive assistant was Rear Adm. Daniel E.
Barbey, who commanded VII Amphibious Force, the ships that would carry
the ground forces, their equipment, and supplies forward into battle
against the Japanese during CARTWHEEL.

The limited sixty-mile range of the boats of the 2d Engineer
Special Brigade, selected to transport the troops and equipment,
dictated that the 1st Battalion, 162d Infantry, land in Nassau Bay. On
30 June a makeshift fleet of 3 PT boats; 29 landing craft vehicles,
personnel (LCVP), and 1 landing craft, mechanized (LCV); and 2 captured
Japanese barges carried the battalion to its objective. Although the
troops landed without enemy opposition, SWPA had much to learn about
amphibious operations. Pounding surf had beached or wrecked eighteen of
the precious landing craft. Small bands of enemy soldiers appeared the
following day, but after confused nighttime skirmishes in a tropical
downpour the outnumbered Japanese fled into the concealment of the
thick jungle. They left behind some 50 of their dead comrades as well
as 18 dead and 27 wounded Americans.

About forty miles from Lae, Nassau Bay became a staging base that
threatened Japanese defenders at Salamaua, a village midway between the
two points that guarded the overland approach to Lae. As the 162d
Regiment, 41st Division, pushed slowly north along the coast from
Nassau Bay, Adachi had to siphon troops from Lae to protect Salamaua.
This left his already understrength Lae garrison vulnerable to a
flanking attack by sea and air.

An Allied pincer was slowly closing on Lae. While the Americans
pushed along the coast, Australian troops advanced on a western axis
from Wau through the Markham Valley. The mainstay of the Japanese
defense was a lone infantry regiment. In such rugged jungled terrain,
however, a few determined men could slow down a division. Numerous
streams cut the coastline into a swampy, muddy bog that impeded the
American push. The few jungle trails capable of bearing basic logistic
support made the direction of the Australian overland thrust
predictable. Japanese infantrymen dug in along key terrain dominating
the obvious approaches. A grueling 75-day ordeal followed in the jungle
wilds under appalling conditions. Patrol-size probes lurching through
overgrown and tangled vegetation became the principal maneuver
elements. Ambush and sudden death awaited the careless or unlucky
because it was often impossible to see more than a few feet into the
undergrowth. In the Southwest Pacific, small arms claimed 32 percent of
Americans killed in action during the war and artillery 17 percent--a
marked contrast to the overall rates in the European theater of 19.7
and 57.5 percent respectively. In part the aberration stemmed from the
relative paucity of

--9--

Japanese artillery compared to their Axis allies; in part
it reflects the face-to-face combat characteristic of jungle fighting.

American losses from the end of June until 12 September, when
Salamaua fell, were 81 killed and 396 wounded while the Australian 15th
Brigade suffered 112 killed, 346 wounded, and 12 missing. Japanese
losses surpassed 1,000 men. The battle casualties tell only part of the
struggle fought out against nature in the jungle wilds. Men on both
sides collapsed, exhausted from the debilitating tropical heat and
humidity; soldiers shook violently from malarial chills or from a
drenching in tropical downpours. Others simply went mad. The
neuropsychiatric rate for American soldiers was the highest in the
Southwest Pacific theater (43.94 per 1,000 men). The same monotonous
field ration--bully beef and biscuits for the Australians, C-rations
for the Americans--left soldiers undernourished and susceptible to the
uncountable tropical diseases that flourished in the warm, moist
jungle.

Japanese losses in their prolonged defense of Salamaua had left
Lae exposed to an Allied envelopment. For his part, General Adachi
expected the newly organized Fourth Air Army at Wewak to
protect Lae's flanks against possible Allied airborne or seaborne
assaults. As for MacArthur, the continuing shortage of ships and
aircraft in SWPA meant that an envelopment of Lae required a total
effort and all available resources. He could not, however, take that
risk without local air superiority.

Faced with Japanese air power on two fronts--Rabaul and now
Wewak--Kenney concentrated all his might against the latter. Wewak,
however, lay beyond the effective range of Allied fighters, and
ordering unescorted heavy bombers to make the attack risked
unacceptable losses. Instead Kenney built an advance secret air base
sixty miles southeast of Lae from where his fighters could reach Wewak.
He planned the raid on the basis of compromised Japanese Army Air
Force air-ground codes which revealed that the enemy had
concentrated ten flying regiments at Wewak. On 17 August 1943, Kenney's
airmen struck Wewak and left 100 parked airplanes destroyed on taxiways
or damaged in their earthen revetments. A follow-up strike the next
morning wrecked 28 more Japanese planes. In just two days Fourth
Air Army lost three-quarters of its aircraft. Temporarily crippled,
it was unable to oppose the first coordinated airborne and amphibious
assault in the Pacific that occurred two weeks later.

More than forty ships manned by 3,200 sailors of Barbey's VII
Amphibious Force, with the 2d Engineer Special Brigade attached,
carried the Australian 9th Division to landing areas eighteen miles
east of Lae. A two-echelon landing spread over 4 to 6 September placed

--10--

Airdrop at Nadzab, Morning of 5 September 1943. (U.S. Air
Force photograph)

some 7,800 Australian troops in the rear of the Japanese defenses.
Meanwhile, unchallenged by Japanese air power, on 5 September 96 C-47
transports, escorted by another 200 fighters and bombers, ferried the
503d Parachute Infantry Regiment to Nadzab, about twenty miles west of
Lae. In a spectacular display, hundreds of American paratroopers
emptied the C-47s within five minutes. They met no opposition on the
ground and quickly secured the landing zone. Within two days C-47s were
flying troops from the Australian 7th Division into the airhead. The
sea-air envelopment threatened to cut off the 51st Division at Lae from
the rest of Eighteenth Army. Adachi ordered the division to
withdraw to Finschhafen fifty miles east of Lae. The luckless Japanese
had to detour around the Australians blocking the coastal road and into
rugged, 12,000-foot-high mountains to reach the north coast. About
8,000 officers and men trekked into the foreboding mountains. More than
2,000 Japanese never came out, most victims of starvation.

Coupled with the loss of the Central Solomons and the Aleutians,
this latest reversal convinced Tokyo that its forces were dangerously
overextended. Imperial Headquarters therefore established a
revised main perimeter line from western New Guinea through the
Carolines to the Marianas. Although Rabaul and eastern New Guinea were
now expendable, Japanese forces there were ordered to delay MacArthur's
advance as long as possible.

--11--

New Guinea Operations
January 1943--February 1944

--12&13--

Meanwhile Allied strategy also underwent a major shift. At
the QUADRANT Conference held during August 1943
in Quebec, Canada, the Combined Chiefs of Staff approved the Joint
Chiefs' recommendation to bypass rather than to capture Rabaul. Now
MacArthur's task became the neutralization of the Japanese on New
Guinea as far west as Wewak. QUADRANT'S
decisions gave priority to the U.S. Navy's drive across the Central
Pacific and naturally disappointed MacArthur, who had argued for the
seizure of Rabaul. The SWPA commander received official notification of
the Combined Chiefs' decisions just five days before his attack on
Finschhafen.

Finschhafen was the strongpoint that guarded the western side of
the sixty-mile-wide straits separating New Guinea and New Britain.
About 3,000 Japanese construction and engineer troops defended from
fortified Satelberg Ridge. This high ground overlooked the entire
coastline about Finschhafen and blocked any further ground push
northward toward Sio. The Japanese perched on the jungle-covered
ridgeline waiting for the inevitable Allied landing.

Australian troops arrived at Finschhafen on 22 September. They
quickly cleared the narrow coastal enclave encompassing the port and
then started up the Satelberg ridgeline. The fighting deteriorated into
a series of deadly small unit combats against a well-entrenched and
fanatically stubborn opponent. By the end of September 2,400 more men
from the 20th Division had reinforced the battle-depleted
engineers.

Two weeks later the Japanese launched a combined ground and
amphibious counterattack. Australian infantrymen beat back the ground
attack, but in the early morning darkness of 17 October one barge full
of Japanese troops got ashore on the Allied beachhead. Pvt. Nathan Van
Noy, Jr., of the 532d Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment, although
seriously wounded by enemy grenades, sprayed the advancing Japanese
with .50-caliber machine-gun fire. Van Noy's body was later found with
his finger still on the trigger, his last round of ammunition fired,
and thirty slain Japanese sprawled in front of his position. He was
posthumously awarded the Medal of
Honor.

The Japanese counterattack was broken, but they fought on for two
more months. Australians of the 9th Division attacked the ridgeline
again and again, isolating and destroying pockets of Japanese
resistance one at a time. At least 5,500 Japanese perished, but they
held their ground until late November. MacArthur found himself bogged
down at Finschhafen, where he had expected a walkover.

While the Australians were bearing the majority of the fighting
from Nassau Bay to Finschhafen, General Krueger was training his
growing number of American divisions to fight as amphibious task

--14--

forces. Admiral Barbey had responsibility for the
amphibious portion of the training designed to take full advantage of
Southwest Pacific's domination of the air and sea by moving infantrymen
over water to strike at their objectives. The seizure of undefended
Woodlark and Kiriwina Islands in the southern Solomon Sea about 180
miles east of Buna during June 1943 had served as dress rehearsals for
American GHQ planners as well as for lower echelon commanders of combat
and service support units.

Southwest Pacific Area had expanded dramatically. From two
infantry divisions, the 32d and 41st, in December 1942, the American
contingent numbered five divisions (1st Cavalry, 6th, 24th, 32d, and
41st) by 31 January 1944. MacArthur also had three regimental combat
teams (formed by attaching a field artillery battalion to the 503d
Parachute Infantry, 112th Cavalry, and 158th Infantry Regiments), three
engineer special brigades, and five Australian infantry divisions.
Three more U.S. infantry divisions--the 31st, 33d, and 43d--were on the
way. A combination of organized mosquito control, scientific treatment,
and improved malaria discipline drummed into the GIs during training
decreased outbreaks of the epidemic sixfold and thus improved combat
effectiveness. Kenney had about 1,000 combat aircraft at his command.
The new Seventh Fleet commander, Vice Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid, had about
the same number of warships as his predecessor, but Barbey's amphibious
fleet had grown with transports, cargo vessels, and landing craft.
Together with Admiral Halsey's South Pacific force, the Allied commands
enjoyed overwhelming numerical superiority in air and naval strength.
They also held the strategic and tactical initiative and could select
the times and places for forthcoming operations that were most
advantageous to the Allied cause.

The Japanese, in contrast, could not replace their losses in
aircraft, shipping, and skilled manpower. Japan's air losses on the New
Guinea and Solomons fronts perhaps surpassed 3,000 aircraft. On the
ground, Eighteenth Army had suffered around 35,000 casualties.
Of the three divisions in eastern New Guinea--the 20th, 41st,
and 51st--only the 41st was near full strength.
Airfield, shipping, engineer construction, and assorted service units
brought Japanese strength in the eastern half of the island to around
60,000 troops. A dangerous 350-mile gap separated maneuver elements of
the 41st Division at Wewak from those of the 36th Division
at Sarmi, Netherlands New Guinea. The 36th was part of a
frenetic Japanese effort to strengthen the western half of the island
through the construction of a web of interlocking airdromes. Until the
buildup in the west was completed, Imamura and Adachi were locked in a
desperate

--15--

battle of attrition against a foe with a crushing
superiority in resources.

Paradoxically, the jungle that had claimed so many Japanese lives
now sheltered them from a concentrated Allied ground offensive. The
jungle rendered large unit maneuver impossible so the Allies could not
bring their overwhelming firepower, manpower, and material resources to
bear en masse against a selected Japanese stronghold. To sustain an
infantry regiment in combat devoured the resources of two division
equivalents. Every Allied operation depended on an extensive logistics
infrastructure, painstakingly scratched out of the wilds, that
stretched from engineers developing a coastal enclave and port back
through the ships that were the umbilical cord between the advance base
and the staging areas. Few soldiers actually fought the Japanese. The
majority, perhaps seven of every eight, served in support roles--
unloading ships, building roads, hauling supplies, preventing malaria,
constructing airfields and bases, and so forth.

How best to use the favorable military balance was a question
whose answer depended on where MacArthur decided to go next. CARTWHEEL had scheduled landings by U.S. Marine and
U.S. Army units at Cape Gloucester and Gasmata on the New Britain
coasts as part of the reconquest of Rabaul. The Quebec decisions,
however, meant that MacArthur's staff had to modify the original plan.

MacArthur's intermediate objective was Madang, about halfway
between Finschhafen and Wewak. To strike Madang, any Allied amphibious
force had to cross the straits separating New Guinea from New Britain.
To protect the Allies' flank during the Madang and Cape Gloucester
operations, Southwest Pacific headquarters also ordered the seizure of
an air and PT base on New Britain. Thus, on 15 December 1943,
MacArthur's forces crossed the straits and invaded Arawe on the western
tip of New Britain. The 112th Cavalry Regiment tried to surprise the
enemy at ,Arawe by a predawn attack in rubber rafts. Although Japanese
gunners shot the flimsy boats to pieces and repulsed this diversionary
assault, the 112th's main force did get ashore by more conventional
means. After suffering through numerous Japanese air raids, the 112th
repulsed a Japanese counterattack at the end of the month and
eventually pushed the enemy away from its perimeter. Thereafter the
cavalrymen, despite the swampy ground and thick mud fed by almost
continuous tropical rains, successfully performed every task that the
limited nature of their mission allowed. At Cape Gloucester on the
north side of New Britain, the 1st Marine Division found itself in
similar circumstances, but on a larger scale. Mud, unbroken swamp, and
dense jungle made an overland

On New Guinea Australian troops of the 7th Division were ahead of
schedule, advancing rapidly through the Ramu Valley on the south side
of the Finisterre Range. On the Huon Peninsula the commonwealth's 9th
Division had secured Finschhafen in early December and was moving along
the coastline north of the range. To exploit the success at
Finschhafen, Sixth Army received orders on 17 December to capture
Saidor, thereby severing the Japanese line of retreat.

Barbey's VII Amphibious Fleet carried the 126th Infantry
Regimental Combat Team (RCT), 32d Division, from Finschhafen through
the Dampier Straits 175 miles to Saidor. In contrast to the confusion
at Nassau Bay just six months earlier, the unopposed landing at Saidor
on 2 January 1944 was a model of precision. Troops and cargo were
unloaded in record time, and, at the cost of 6 battle casualties, more
than 6,700 troops and their supplies were ashore by evening. MacArthur
now had an intermediate staging base for his Madang operation, control
of both sides of the straits, and an enemy division trapped at Sio
between the Australian 9th Division's steady advance and the 126th
RCT's blocking position at Saidor.

Once again the Japanese found themselves forced to flee into the
rugged mountains in order to escape encirclement. As they sidestepped
inland around Saidor, the retreating Japanese left a trail of abandoned
equipment. On 15 January 1944, an Australian patrol pushing through Sio
after the fleeing enemy discovered a half-buried trunk in a stream bed.
It held the complete cipher library of the Imperial Japanese Army's
20th Division. The find was immediately returned to Central Bureau,
MacArthur's Allied cryptanalytic agency in Brisbane, Australia. Central
Bureau used the captured code books to solve the Japanese Army's
main cipher system. This intelligence windfall arrived exactly when
MacArthur was most prepared to take advantage of it.

In January 1944 MacArthur and his staff were searching for ways to
accelerate the final phases of the campaign against Madang and complete
the isolation of Rabaul. Around this time, Fifth Air Force pilots
consistently reported the absence of any signs of Japanese activity on
Los Negros, largest of the Admiralty group which lay about 360 miles
west of Rabaul. Kenney insisted that air power had driven the Japanese
from the island and recommended to MacArthur that ground troops
immediately seize the supposedly undefended island with its valuable
airstrips. Despite intelligence from decrypted enemy communications
which revealed that more than 4,000 Japanese were defending the
Admiralties, MacArthur approved Kenney's scheme. On five days

--17--

First Wave at Los Negros, Admiralty Islands. (DA photograph)

notice, Sixth Army was ordered to land in the Admiralties. If the
troops encountered too much opposition, they would withdraw the same
day.

On 29 February 1944, a reconnaissance-in-force of about 1,000
officers and men from the reinforced 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry
Division, landed on Los Negros. The initial landings caught the
Japanese off guard, facing the opposite direction. But the Japanese
fought back with a fury; vicious night fighting typified the next five
days. Krueger threw sufficient reinforcements into the battle to tip
the balance in the cavalrymen's favor. After three days of piecemeal
attacks, the Japanese struck hard on the night of 3-4 March and nearly
succeeded in breaking the cavalrymen's lines. During this action Sgt.
Troy A. McGill and his eight-man squad withstood repeated attacks. When
all but McGill and another man had been killed or wounded, McGill
ordered the survivor to the rear, fired his rifle at the advancing
Japanese until it jammed, then fought them in front of the position,
using the rifle as a club until he was killed. His actions earned him a
posthumous Medal of Honor.
MacArthur's luck and daring, plus the courage of a handful of
cavalrymen like Sergeant McGill, had won an impressive victory.

Capture of the Admiralties isolated Rabaul and gave MacArthur a
forward air base that extended his fighter range past Wewak. Seizing

--18--

Unloading LST's, Red Beach 2 (Hollandia). (U.S. Navy
photograph)

the Admiralties two months ahead of schedule also led the Joint
Chiefs
to reevaluate Pacific strategy. MacArthur sent his chief of staff, Lt.
Gen. Richard K. Sutherland, to Washington to brief an operation
remarkable in scope, daring in execution, and promising to cut months
off the Southwest Pacific advance. This was the revised RENO IV plan to
jump an unprecedented 400 miles up the New Guinea coastline to capture
the major Japanese air and supply base at Hollandia. Code-named RECKLESS, the Hollandia operation was a masterpiece of
sound planning that took full advantage of extremely accurate
intelligence obtained from reading Japanese codes. For MacArthur it
proved the decisive operation on New Guinea and was the turning point
in his war against the Japanese.

When Allied codebreakers lifted the veil shrouding Japanese
defenses, it became evident that MacArthur's next landing, scheduled
for 26 April in Hansa Bay, midway between Madang and Wewak, could
expect strong ground opposition. Moreover Japanese aerial
reinforcements were filling up the major air base complex at Hollandia
from where they would support the land defense of Madang. Conversely,
Hollandia's land defenses were almost nonexistent. The soft Japanese
center remained vulnerable to an Allied landing.

JCS approval of RECKLESS did not
automatically ensure success of

--19--

New Guinea Operations
22 April--27 May 1944

--20&21--

The Assault on Wakde Island. (DA photograph)

execution. MacArthur, for instance, needed carrier air support
because
Hollandia was far beyond the range of his land-based fighter aircraft.
The U.S. Navy, busily preparing for its assault of the Marianas, could
provide three days of carrier support and no more. General Headquarters
planners then decided to seize Aitape, about 140 miles east of
Hollandia. Aitape's airstrips could provide land-based fighter support
to the ground troops at Hollandia after the carriers departed. The
operation now evolved into a herculean effort by 217 ships to transport
safely 80,000 men, their equipment, and supplies 1,000 miles to conduct
three separate amphibious landings deep in the enemy rear area. The
Japanese fleet was no longer a threat, having withdrawn from Rabaul to
the safety of the Philippines. Control of the skies along the invasion
route, however, was the prerequisite to success.

By late March, Kenney knew from deciphered Japanese communications
that about 350 enemy warplanes were concentrated near Hollandia where
they believed themselves safely beyond the range of Allied air strikes.
Employing new model P-38s whose extended range

--22--

made them ideal as escorts, Kenney sent sixty B-24 heavy
bombers against Hollandia on 30 March. Follow-up raids demolished
nearly all the operational Japanese aircraft at Hollandia on the
ground. Never again would the enemy contest air superiority over New
Guinea.

For MacArthur to bag all of Eighteenth Army, it was
imperative that Adachi continue to believe that MacArthur's next blow
was aimed at the Madang-Hansa area. A well-designed deception effort
fed General Adachi and his staff a steady diet of false information
about an Allied landing in Hansa Bay that the Japanese were predisposed
to believe. The deception was so successful that on 22 April the 24th
and 41st Divisions, led by Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger, commander
of I Corps and the RECKLESS Task Force, landed
unopposed twenty-five miles apart at Hollandia. The 163d Regimental
Combat Team simultaneously waded ashore against no opposition at
Aitape. In one swoop MacArthur had split the Japanese defenses on New
Guinea in half, isolating Eighteenth Army in eastern New
Guinea.

Once ashore, the 24th and 41st Divisions, moving east and west
respectively, conducted a pincer movement to encircle Hollandia's three
airfields. The maze of jungle trails, rain-swollen streams, marshy
lowlands, and numerous hills and defiles proved a harsher opponent than
the Japanese. Although there were 7,600 enemy near Hollandia, most were
assigned to service, airfield, and communications units. Only one in
ten carried a rifle. Surprised, badly outnumbered, demoralized, and ill
equipped for battle, the Japanese fled into the jungle in hopes of
reaching Sarmi, about 150 miles to the northwest. On 26 April the
pincers closed on the airdromes where GIs discovered an aircraft
graveyard of 340 wrecked planes that provided silent testimony to the
deadliness of Kenney's earlier air raids.

With the enemy disorganized and confused, MacArthur's strategy was
to capture additional forward airfields from which to cover his further
advance into Geelvink Bay and thence the Vogelkop Peninsula. While his
Sixth Army advanced rapidly westward to exploit his Hollandia advantage
by not allowing Japanese defenders any respite, General Krueger
simultaneously had to prevent Adachi's Eighteenth Army from
breaking through the Hollandia encirclement. Just five days after the
Hollandia/Aitape landings, MacArthur ordered the 41st Division to
leapfrog to Wakde Island and the airstrips at Sarmi on the adjacent New
Guinea coast by mid-May.

The 163d RCT landed unopposed in Maffin Bay near Sarmi on 17 May
and prepared to take Wakde. The following day four rifle companies of
the 163d assaulted the tiny island. Wakde proved a tough nut to crack.
It took two days of nasty squad-size fighting to pry almost 800

--23--

Japanese defenders from their spider holes, coconut log
bunkers, and coral caves. In sum, 40 American soldiers were killed and
107 wounded to take Wakde. They counted 759 Japanese corpses and
brought back 4 prisoners of war.

By 22 May Krueger had achieved his objectives near Sarmi. He then
enlarged the mission. To secure the high ground overlooking Maffin Bay,
Krueger ordered an overland advance toward Sarmi village about eighteen
miles west of the beachhead. The American push by the 158th RCT ignited
a sharp battle for a coral lump overgrown with rain forest, forever
after known as Lone Tree Hill. Following several days of close-in
fighting, correctly believing itself outnumbered and overextended, the
158th pulled back toward its beachhead.

Three separate Japanese forces threatened the Americans. Units of
the 223d and 224th Infantry Regiments had checked the
158th RCT at Lone Tree Hill. Simultaneously a second Japanese task
force composed of the main force of the 223d Infantry had
infiltrated through the jungle and worked its way behind the strung-out
American advance. Yet a third enemy force, a battalion of the 224th
Infantry, was returning from the direction of Hollandia, which
placed it on the exposed eastern flank of the American beachhead.
Fortunately for the GIs, the Japanese could not coordinate their
offensive, but their piecemeal attacks alerted Sixth Army to the
potential danger of the situation.

Operations farther west required the 158th RCT and the 163d
Infantry. To replace them, and to strengthen Army forces, Krueger
ordered the entire 6th Infantry Division to the Sarmi region. On 14
June the 6th Division relieved the 158th and took up the fight for Lone
Tree Hill. After ten days of tough, close infantry fighting, the now
veteran 6th Division held Lone Tree Hill. Division members counted
nearly 1,000 Japanese bodies and sealed other enemy soldiers forever in
fortified caves. The division itself suffered about 700 battle and 500
non-battle casualties. With the high ground in American possession,
Maffin Bay became a major staging base for all or parts of five
different task forces--Biak, Noemfoor, Sansapor, and Leyte, plus Luzon
in the Philippines.

The 6th Division was slated to spearhead the Sansapor landing, so
Sixth Army headquarters ordered the 31st Infantry Division to Maffin
Bay to replace it. From mid-July until the end of August, the 31st
conducted aggressive patrolling to keep the Japanese at bay. It
suffered about 240 battle casualties while killing nearly 300 Japanese
and capturing 14 others before it departed in early September to invade
Morotai. The 123d Regimental Combat Team, 33d Division, arrived on 1
September to garrison the area. It remained until January 1945

--24--

Infantrymen Moving Up, Biak. (DA photograph)

when a battalion combat team of the 93d Infantry Division replaced
it.
Altogether the fighting near Sarmi cost U.S. Army units approximately
2,100 battle casualties. Five times that number of Japanese perished.
Although the area later supported five invasions, the push toward Sarmi
was a significant distraction at a time when Krueger had his hands full
juggling four other major operations--Aitape, Noemfoor, Sansapor, and
Biak.

Biak Island dominates strategic Geelvink Bay. Its coral airstrips,
suitable for heavy bombers, were a powerful lure to MacArthur and
Kenney. On 27 May the 41st Division (minus) arrived at Biak which lies
only sixty miles south of the equator. The first wave landed exactly as
planned, but strong currents carried subsequent units well west of
their designated landing beaches. There was, fortunately, only nominal
enemy resistance because the invasion caught the Japanese garrison
flat-footed. Still, the steaming equatorial heat, thick,
twelve-foot-high scrub growth, rugged terrain, and small parties of
Japanese entrenched in caves cut into the face of a 200-foot-high cliff
combined to slow the American advance along the coastal track toward
the vital airstrips. Nevertheless, by the following morning, patrols of
the 162d Infantry Regiment were within 200 yards of the island's
airfields. Then a violent Japanese counterattack drove them back.

American troops now found themselves under attack from the west
and the targets of well-aimed fire from the East Caves which dominated
the coastal road. In constant danger of being cut off, the 162d fought
an unseen enemy until ordered to withdraw in late afternoon. The next
morning opened with another counterattack by the 222d Infantry
Regiment supported by half a dozen light tanks. Sherman M4 tanks
dispatched the inferior Japanese models while the 162d broke the
infantry attack. The Japanese, however, regrouped for

--25--

another attack. More importantly, the Americans finally
recognized the importance of clearing the high ground of Japanese.

In these circumstances, the 41st Division commander, Maj. Gen.
Horace H. Fuller, requested reinforcements. Krueger dispatched the 163d
RCT, which had accomplished its mission at Wakde and was an organic
regiment of the division. It arrived on 1 June along with an admonition
from Krueger to the division commander to push the offensive
vigorously. Meanwhile the 186th Infantry Regiment had occupied the
plateau overlooking the landing beaches and was pushing westward. With
the 162d along the coastal road pinning the Japanese defenders, the
186th threatened the East Caves from the rear. MacArthur, however,
wanted the airfields immediately to support planned landings farther
west. His unrelenting pressure on Krueger translated, in turn, to
Krueger's demands that the 41st Division quickly take the airfields.
Thus the 186th Infantry was ordered from the high ground down to the
airfield on the coast. By moving into this basin, the regiment placed
itself under Japanese guns and suffered a continual pounding. Because
the enemy dominated the airdrome by fire, it remained unusable by
Allied warplanes.

MacArthur then dispatched General Eichelberger to the island with
orders to get the troops moving on the airfield. Despite a shakeup of
commanders, the fighting continued unabated on Biak through June, and
the island was not completely secured until mid-July. The doomed
garrison fought tenaciously, but to a foregone conclusion that left
more than 4,800 Japanese dead at the cost of nearly 2,800 American
casualties. Because Biak's airfields were not taken as scheduled,
MacArthur ordered the capture of the strips on tiny, 15-mile-long by
12-mile-wide, Noemfoor Island situated 60 miles west of Biak.

Preceded by an intense naval bombardment, more than 13,500 troops
of the 158th Regimental Combat Team (Reinforced) stormed ashore on
Noemfoor on 2 July against desultory resistance. One dazed Japanese
prisoner announced that recently arrived reinforcements had raised the
garrison's strength to nearly 4,500 men. The surprised task force
commander immediately requested reinforcements from Sixth Army. In
truth no Japanese reinforcements had landed on Noemfoor, but the
reserve of 1,500 officers and men of the 503d Parachute Infantry
Regiment jumped onto the island using its runway as their drop zone.
High winds carried the parachutists to bone-cracking landings in supply
dumps, vehicle parks, and amidst wrecked Japanese aircraft. No
paratroopers fell to hostile fire, but 128 were injured in the jump,
including 59 serious fracture cases.

To the paratroopers also fell the nasty job of mopping up the

--26--

enemy on Noemfoor. "Mopping up" meant searching for an
elusive enemy and hoping you found him before he found you. When the
Japanese did surprise a platoon from the 503d, Sgt. Ray E. Eubanks led
his squad to their relief. Enemy fire wounded Eubanks and smashed his
rifle, yet he continued to lead his men forward and, using his rifle as
a club, killed four Japanese before he was again hit and killed. His
heroism earned a Medal of Honor.
For the entire Noemfoor campaign, the task force incurred a total of
411 battle casualties while killing 1,759 Japanese and capturing
another 889, mostly laborers. While GIs secured Biak and Noemfoor, 500
miles to the east Eighteenth Army was approaching Aitape.

After scant opposition following the 22 April landing at Aitape,
Allied engineers had quickly converted the existing Japanese airdromes
into a major fighter base. By early June the 32d Division had
established an outer defensive perimeter along the western banks of the
Driniumor River, about fifteen miles east of the airstrips. Extensive
intelligence reports warned the American commanders of the coming
offensive.

Privy to the unfolding enemy plan thanks to codebreaking, Krueger
asked MacArthur for, and received, additional infantry, artillery, and
air reinforcements for Aitape, bringing the total forces, either
present or en route, to two and two-thirds divisions. Eventually the
32d and 43d Infantry Divisions, plus the 124th Infantry, 31st Division,
and the 112th RCT as well as a corps artillery section and tank
destroyer battalion stiffened the defense. On 28 June Krueger created
XI Corps to oversee the growing Allied force and appointed Maj. Gen.
Charles P. Hall its commander. Hall enclosed the vital airstrips with a
semicircular, ten-mile, defensive belt whose flanks rested on the sea.
Along this line were more than 1,500 mutually protective log bunkers.
Barbed wire obstacles and entanglements girded the line. Within that
perimeter stood the equivalent of two divisions, including nine
infantry battalions. Fifteen miles east, however, only three infantry
battalions and two understrength cavalry squadrons defended the
Driniumor River line. They had little barbed wire, few bunkers, poor
fields of fire, and miserable jungle tracks for communication.

The Driniumor's twenty-foot-wide stream was easily fordable,
calf-deep water. Dense jungle and towering trees on both sides of the
wider riverbed effectively masked movement on the opposite banks.
American riflemen and machine gunners in foxholes, pits, and a few
bunkers along the river nervously awaited a Japanese attack. Japanese
prisoners of war told of a forthcoming assault. American patrols had
encountered stiffening Japanese resistance, and numerous decrypted

--27--

messages pointed to an imminent offensive. Rather than wait
for the Japanese attack, Hall ordered a textbook maneuver, a
reconnaissance-in-force along both enemy flanks, to commence on 10
July.

That morning an infantry battalion on the north and a cavalry
squadron on the south crossed the Driniumor and probed cautiously
eastward. The reconnaissance-in-force passed north and south of Eighteenth
Army's main assembly areas which were from two to four miles
inland from the coast. Only two infantry battalions and a cavalry
squadron remained to defend the Driniumor line.

That night ten thousand howling Japanese troops burst across the
shallow Driniumor and charged through the center of the badly
outnumbered and undermanned covering force. GIs fired their machine
guns and automatic rifles until the barrels turned red hot, but the
Japanese, eerily visible under the light of flares, surged forward.
American artillery fell in clusters on the Japanese infantrymen,
killing and maiming hundreds or crushing others beneath the tall trees
that snapped apart in the unceasing explosions. Japanese numbers proved
irresistible. Their breakthrough precipitated a month-long battle of
attrition in the New Guinea wilds.

GIs moved behind heavy artillery support to close off pockets of
Japanese resistance. The jungle restricted movement so the hardest
fighting fell to rifle squads or platoons. Infantrymen fought a
disconnected series of vicious actions that appeared coherent only on
headquarters' situation maps. Adachi's men asked no quarter and
received none. During July and August 1944, nearly 10,000 Japanese
perished. Almost 3,000 Americans fell along the Driniumor, 440 of them
killed. In terms of American casualties, it was MacArthur's most costly
campaign since Buna.

One measure of the severity of the fighting was the award of four
Medals of Honor, all posthumously, for the campaign. Three soldiers
received the decoration for self-sacrifice. Pvt. Donald R. Lobaugh of the 127th Infantry,
32d Division, launched a single-handed attack on a Japanese machine gun
nest that saved his squad but cost him his life. S. Sgt. Gerald L. Endl, 128th Infantry, 32d Division,
also single-handedly engaged the enemy at close range to save seven
wounded Americans. As Endl was carrying the last wounded man to safety,
a burst of Japanese machine gun fire killed him. Second Lt. George W.
G. Boyce, Jr., of Troop A,
112th RCT, threw himself on a hand grenade to save his men. Second Lt.
Dale Eldon Christensen,
also of Troop A, won the medal for his series of heroic actions and
outstanding leadership during the 112th's mid-July counterattack.
Christensen was later killed "mopping up" after a Japanese attack.
Their valor and

--28--

the anonymous heroism of their comrades broke the back of Eighteenth
Army.

Hall's victory allowed Sixth Army's other ongoing operations to
proceed on or ahead of schedule and validated MacArthur's concept of
bypassing the enemy. Adachi's terrible defeat left Eighteenth Army
trapped between the Americans in the west and the Australians in the
east. In mid-December 1944 Australian forces began a slow, determined
drive from the east toward Wewak, which finally fell on 10 May 1945.
Australian losses were 451 killed, 1,163 wounded, and 3 missing. Some
7,200 Japanese fell. Adachithen kept his approximately 13,000 survivors
together in the hills and surrendered only in September 1945. Adachi
himself was tried at Rabaul for war crimes, but beat the hangman by
committing suicide in September 1947.

With the fighting along the Driniumor flickering out, MacArthur's
final assault landing on New Guinea took place at Sansapor, a weak
point between two known Japanese strongholds on the Vogelkop Peninsula.
There were about 15,000 Japanese troops of the 35th Division at
Manokwari, 120 miles east of Sansapor. Sixty miles to Sansapor's west
were 12,500 enemy soldiers at the major air base complex of Sorong.
Rather than fight on the enemy's terms, MacArthur employed SWPA's
well-tested amphibious capability to leapfrog to Sansapor where, on 30
July, 7,300 men of the 6th Division conducted an unopposed landing.
Sixth Army had once again split the Japanese forces in order to seize a
coastal enclave that combat engineers quickly transformed from jungle
overgrowth into two airfields that provided valuable support during
MacArthur's invasion of Morotai in the Molucca chain. Japan's 35th
Division found itself isolated in western New Guinea. For
historical purposes, Sixth Army closed the Vogelkop operation on 31
August 1944, although the 6th Division remained there until it left for
Luzon, Philippines, in January 1945. Units of the 93d Infantry Division
then took over the defense of the airfields.

Analysis

The New Guinea Campaign is really the story of two Allied armies
fighting two kinds of war--one of grinding attrition and one of classic
maneuver. During the attrition period, from January 1943 until January
1944, Australian infantrymen carried the bulk of ground combat while
the Americans reconstituted, reinforced, and readied themselves for the
maneuver phase of the campaign. During attrition warfare characteristic
of eastern New Guinea ground operations through the seizure of the
Saidor in January 1944, the Allies suffered more

than 24,000 battle casualties; about 70 percent (17,107) were
Australians. All this to advance the front line 300 miles in 20 months.
But following the decisive Hollandia, Netherlands New Guinea,
envelopment in April 1944, losses were 9,500 battle casualties, mainly
American, to leap 1,300 miles in just 100 days and complete the
reconquest of the great island.

The series of breathtaking landings, often within a few weeks of
one another, were the fruits of the Australians' gallant effort in
eastern New Guinea. They fought the Japanese to a standstill at Wau and
then pushed a fanatical foe back to the Huon Peninsula. This gave Sixth
Army the time to train and to prepare American forces for the
amphibious assaults that MacArthur envisioned. It also bought the time
to bring the industrial capacity of America to bear in the Southwest
Pacific. Aircraft, ships, landing craft, ammunition, medicine,
equipment--in short, the sinews of war--gradually found their way to
MacArthur's fighting men. Still, without flexible senior commanders who
adapted their plans to wring full advantage of Japanese weakness, the
campaign could have degenerated into a meatgrinder

--30--

along the coast which is what the enemy wanted.

Instead the speed of MacArthur's seaborne envelopments
consistently surprised the Japanese. At the strongpoints where they
expected to fight a delaying action, MacArthur bypassed them. Where
they were weak, he overwhelmed them. Between Wau and Sansapor 110,000
of the emperor's soldiers and sailors died from enemy action, disease,
or starvation in the pestilent jungles, the cold mountains, or in the
empty seas. Another 30,000 were isolated in New Guinea and neutralized.
Add to this the more than 57,000 imperial soldiers and 39,000 sailors
marooned on New Britain and the totality of Allied victory in the New
Guinea Campaign comes into sharp relief.

Victory on the ground depended on local air superiority which
enabled the Navy to carry the ground forces safely forward to the next
objective. The infantry held the ground and allowed the engineers to
construct a forward air base, and the cycle began again. Against this
sophisticated employment of combined arms warfare, modern technology,
and industrial might, Tokyo asked its hardened veterans to do the
impossible. Japanese infantry operations, brave, determined, but
futile, were swept aside by Allied joint operations relying on the
combined air, naval, and ground firepower essential for the conduct of
modern war. MacArthur bypassed the jungle and left it to devour the
Japanese soldiers isolated in its interior.

But above all New Guinea was the story of the courage of the GI
who could always be counted on to move forward against a determined
foe. It was the ordinary American soldier who endured the worst
deprivations that the debilitating New Guinea climate and terrain could
offer. It was the lowly GI who was the brains, the muscle, the blood,
and the heart and soul of the great army that came of age in the
Southwest Pacific Area in 1943 and 1944. In one tough fight after
another, he never lost a battle to the Japanese. Those accomplishments
and sacrifices are forever his and deserve to be remembered by all.

--31--

Further Readings

Two volumes of the U.S. Army in World War II series, John Miller, Jr., CARTWHEEL:
The Reduction of Rabaul (1959) and
Robert Ross Smith, The
Approach to the Philippines (1953)
remain the best accounts of the New Guinea Campaign. Similarly David
Dexter, Australia in the War of 1939-45: The Army: The New Guinea
Offensives (1961) is an excellent recounting of Australia's ground
war on New Guinea. Several top American commanders like Robert L.
Eichelberger and Milton MacKaye, Our Jungle Road to Tokyo
(1950); Walter Krueger, From Down Under to Nippon (1953); and
George C. Kenney, General Kenney Reports (1949) discuss New
Guinea operations in general terms. More critical, though still
general, accounts appear in Eichelberger's letters published in Jay
Luvaas, ea., Dear Miss Em (1972) and D. Clayton James'
excellent biography The Years of MacArthur, vol. 2,1941-1945.
Edward J. Drea's "Defending the Driniumor," Leavenworth Paper No. 9
(1984) details tactical operations at Aitape while his MacArthur's
ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War Against Japan,
1942-1945 (1992) analyzes MacArthur's use of intelligence during
the New Guinea fighting.

CMH Pub 72-9

--32--

Transcribed and formatted for HTML by Patrick Clancey,
HyperWar Foundation